Who Gets to Decide?

Puritanism — The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.
--H.L. Mencken

 

I remember the day, as clear as a bell. 

Back when the LFG tool was shiny and new, I got onto a run of the Halls of Lightning instance.

For the uninitiated, it's one of two five person instances attached to the Ulduar complex. This is where the Titans created Earthen and the iron giants that serve Keeper Loken in "keeping Yogg-Saron in prison". Yes, in traditional WoW fashion, Loken has been corrupted by Yogg-Saron, and the Old Gods created the Curse of Flesh that turned Earthen and the iron giants into the first Dwarves and Vrykul (yes, Viking Giants). At the end of the Halls of Lightning you confront the corrupted Keeper, but to get from here to there you have to kill a lot of things in a place that looks straight out of a Medieval Astronomer's hideout.

When you zone in, you have to navigate some ramparts that are part Harry Potter and part The Vikings*, which can take some time to clear even if you skip a lot of the trash.

Well, on this particular day, I zoned in with four other random people, and the tank just up and takes off. He begins pulling. And pulling. And pulling. Until he pulls the entire room. 

Oh, he wasn't done there. Oh no.

He kept right on pulling, up through the next room, until he finally died.

"WTF are you doing??!!!" The healer cried.

"I'm having fun!" was the reply.

After we rather predictably wiped, the tank got back on and tried doing the same shit again, which led once more to a quick death. One DPS dropped, their replacement almost instantly died and dropped group, and their replacement kept saying "OMG! OMG!" while running to us.

Randoms like that were things that made me question my sanity, especially given that this was in the pre "merge" LFG, where you theoretically got to know people on your server even through random LFG pugs.

The thing is, Area 52 - US was a huge Horde favored server back in the day (10:1 Horde) which is now even larger and almost completely Horde (there's something like only 3 Alliance guilds on the server compared to 1130 Horde guilds, according to WoWAnalytica). With a size like that, a random asshat will almost never be seen again by people in LFGs, so they could afford to behave so poorly.

But I was reminded of that run last night when I was reading Horde LFG chat on Myzrael-US while I was on Neve, grinding some mobs in Eastern Plaguelands for their Runecloth.**

When I popped in, people were talking about what I can only describe as hentai with a side of "WTF are you talking about?"

After about 10-15 minutes of rather R-rated discussion, one person had finally had it and started reporting and ignoring people. 

"He's just upset we're having fun," someone replied to that person's leaving.

The response I did not say --I decided to not get involved-- was "Whose fun?"

***

In a multiplayer game this sort of question inevitably comes out. How people define "fun" to them is going to be on a pretty broad spectrum, and one person's "fun" is going to be another person's "annoyance".

Or, in the case of that so-called LFG Chat "discussion", much worse.

And I don't know if I can answer that question effectively.

There ought to be some sort of community standards in place in multiplayer games, especially when they're advertised as T (for Teen) as World of Warcraft is (and, I believe, SWTOR and LOTRO are too). Sure, Age of Conan and it's M (for Mature) gets a bit of a broader allowance for shenanigans, and EVE Online is, well, anything goes. But still, my point is that you kind of have to adhere to the rating you aimed for (and received) on the box.

But chatroom behavior just one aspect of multiplayer games.

There's behavior out in the field, in a group context, in raids***, in battlegrounds/PvP, and just general "off time" behavior in game you have to navigate. What is applauded in one area might not be in another.

For example, ninja-ing things are applauded in battlegrounds, but are rejected in other forms of group content. The quickest way to find yourself ostracized on an MMO server is to become known as a loot ninja in groups or raids.****

I'd like to think the easiest way of saying how to behave in a multiplayer format is Wheaton's Law: "Don't be a dick", but what that really means is up for interpretation. Some people are more strict about what being a dick actually entails than others, and that disagreement can spark issues. 

For example, I've always considered it unseemly if I, as a raid lead, got loot ahead of others. When discussion about the Legendary Twin Blades of Azzinoth that drop in Black Temple came up, I was surprised and shocked that on the 2x/week raid one of the raid leads was fingered to receive the weapon. I found out that the other Rogue on that raid team was a bit upset, but she figured she'd lost her chance at the legendaries because she wasn't picked to be a raid lead. I said in our internal raid lead chat that was the reason that I would pass on the weapons on principle, as I'd never want anyone to think I used my position as a raid lead to influence whether I should receive the two blades. 

"You're a better man that I, Brig," another of the raid leads replied. "I'd take it. But I wouldn't be part of the conversation, either."

Regardless, what is fun for people can vary enough that in a multiplayer format I don't know if there's a happy medium that can be reached. Some people have to have a defined set of goals to achieve, others don't. Some people like the grind (yes, they do exist) and others don't. Some people like group content, and others would rather avoid groups like the plague. I guess the question remains as to whether an MMO can be all things to all people, and yet still try to push players in a specific direction. Can an MMO such as WoW, which is all about the Endgame, still be broad enough to accommodate the player for whom the journey is far more important than the destination? Can an MMO, which like so many other video games is focused on the acquisition of things, accommodate people who are not interested in the new shiny?

***

Anybody else remember the Sparkle Pony?

If you're of a certain MMO age, you probably remember it. The Celestial Steed, if you want to use its formal name, was the first mount in the Blizzard Shop that you could buy using actual money and use in game. I certainly remember my first encounter with a Sparkle Pony, as I was on one of my toons handling some Auction House work in Silvermoon when a player rode by on one. I did a double take and asked the player where they got that mount. "Oh," they replied, "It's from the Blizzard Shop." 

"Oh."

Within hours we were inundated with Sparkle Ponies all over the damn place, and the mount went from "hey, that's kind of cute" to "WTF" to "those damn things" just like that.

Over a decade later, despite the tempest in a teapot that was the controversy over the Dark Portal Pass Deluxe Edition, there were tons of people using the Phase Hunter Mount and the Dark Portal Hearthstone skin. Obviously those people who bought both mounts off the Blizzard Shop were having fun, despite the visible annoyance to a lot of other people. 

I guess the best thing we can do make our own fun, so long as it's not done so as to annoy others. After all, it could be worse. Such as using an honest to god ERP brothel in an MMO.

*Yes, the cheesy old Kirk Douglas and Tony Curtis movie.

**Sometimes, you just have to kill things for their drops. In this case, I wanted enough cloth to level Tailoring so I could make some Frostweave Pants for Neve. Yes, she's a Frost Mage, so getting a bonus in Frost damage is always a good thing, especially if it means she's not totally outgunned when she crosses the Dark Portal.

***Raids have a separate dynamic from smaller group content, so I identified them separately.

****Of course, a quick name change --and maybe a guild change-- and you're back in the saddle, ready to ride again. Kind of sad if you think about it. Blizz laughs all the way to the bank, and the player gets off (mostly) scot-free.

 

Letters from Outland Part 3

Dear Card--

Things have been hectic for me, so it's been a while since my last letter home. I'm currently sitting in a tavern called The World's End, located in the slums of Shattrath City, having a drink while a band plays on a makeshift stage.

Yes, that is an ogre behind me. No, he
didn't try to eat me.

 

Everything is makeshift in the slums here, formally called the Lower City, where refugees from the numerous conflicts across Outland have congregated. The denizens of Lower City share a commonality* that transcends their original alliances, be it Horde, Alliance, Avian, or even the Burning Legion, and have bonded together for their own survival. Yes, you read that right; some ex-members of the Burning Legion can be found here, as apparently the Legion doesn't take too kindly to people who defect.

Speaking of defections, I was not expecting to find Sindorei who were formerly allied with Illidan in this City.

The Horde allied Sindorei are one thing, but apparently a large group of Sindorei who were among Kael'Thas Sunstrider's best and most powerful people defected to the service of the Naaru here.

They may look like fancy lights, but
the people who have seen them defend
the city speak of their power in hushed tones.

 

Oh yes, there are these, well, things called the Naaru that alternately rule and protect Shattrath City. They showed up right as things looked very very bad for the Draenei, and the Draenei took one of their... ships? to Azeroth. I've been told by Zarleigha that it crash landed on an island near Teldrassil; you might want to go investigate if you've some time.

Anyway, I arrived in the city looking for assistance for the Expedition, and I found it. 

According to Zarleigha, most of the Draenei were slain when the Orcs abandoned the old ways and embraced the Burning Legion, but you'd never believe it if you came to Shattrath City first.

Draenei are everywhere, including their High Priestess.

And naturally, I almost interrupted
a prayer session. I need to work on being quieter.

But don't be fooled; Shattrath is not only a refuge from the fighting outside its borders, it is also a staging area for the fight against the two common enemies: Illidan and the Legion.

And wonder of wonders, I found someone that we in Stormwind were certain we'd never see again: Khadgar.

He looks smaller than his statue makes
him out to be.

No, I didn't mention Mistress Evelyn or Elsharin to him, but he was polite enough with me that he summoned an arcane servant to show me around. 

 

I think he meant it to be strictly complimentary, but I found enough tension in this place that I'm surprised there hasn't been fighting in the streets.

 

 

That... thing on the left is an ethereal.
No, I have no idea how they got here.

That brings me to the oddest part about this place: were it not for the Naaru here, I'm sure that Shattrath would have been destroyed. Not from enemies, per se, but from within. The Naaru themselves hold everything together politically, but just barely. If you recall the tension within Elwynn when the Defias were at their height of power, it's kind of like that. Only worse. 

It's not like the Draenei don't have a beef against the Sindorei here; they were enemies who invaded and slew their kind, and here they're forced to play nice in service of a greater cause. And the Sindorei are apparently nursing some major abandonment issues caused by the fall of Quel'Thalas and how they were treated by Lordaeron afterward. I imagine Elsharin knows more, but I don't think it's a wise idea to broach that topic with her. 

But I've discharged my current duties and word is that I'm to be heading out to points east of the city. Some of the Legion's allies are in the surrounding forests, and I presume I'm going to be helping to assault their positions.

I heard from Jas that a few of your friends stopped by to try to recruit you to come to Outland, but I'm glad you're staying put for now. I will keep an eye out for some of them here, but no guarantees. This place is larger than I thought it would be.

Be well, and write soon!

--Linna

 

*See? I can also use those words that Mistress Evelyn drilled into our heads during our lessons.

It's a Brave New World, and I'm Just Living in It

The other day I did something that I hadn't done in, well, ages.

I logged into Azshandra and went herb farming.

Hel-loooo, Plaguebloom...

 

This whole thing began with Spring Cleaning.

I have two bank alts, and in both cases their entire bank slots are taken up with, well, junk from Classic: Old mats, some spell scrolls, some green gear I never sold on the AH (or disenchanted), stuff like that. What that included were a ton of old herbs I'd farmed in preparation for making potions for Naxxramas, and those herbs had been languishing since around last May. So, I figured, I might as well toss them up on the Auction House and see how it goes.

Much to my surprise, those herbs did sell, especially the 'big three' out of the Plaguelands: Mountain Silversage, Plaguebloom, and Dreamfoil. And not for a discount price, either.

Oh sure, they weren't selling at their high point in early/mid Naxxramas, but 20 or so gold per stack is nothing to sneeze at. 

Therefore, I thought that it might be worth it to spend about 1/2 hour back in the Plaguelands just to see if that was just a one off or whether there's still a market for some of these herbs.

***

The first thing I discovered is that I've spent entirely too much time going through the Old World as a max level toon, because I forgot two things:

• Az is no longer max level
• An L60 in the Plaguelands can't steamroll over the mobs there.

Uh, oops.

My fingers were trying to remember
Az' old rotation. Eventually they did.

I at least had the decency to remember to repopulate my talent trees, unlike the last time I logged onto Az*, but there were still a few fights that I had to remember how to Vanish and run so that any DoTs wouldn't have me instantly reappear in front of the mobs again.

But still, once I got used to giving a wide berth to mobs I wasn't interested in fighting, the time spent picking herbs was rather pleasant. And I even found a Black Lotus early on, just lying out there without anybody else around.

That made me suspicious, because the previous King of the Herbs was so rarely found out in the wild like this, so I checked in /who to see who else was around and....

o_O

Oh. 

Oh wow.

This never happened in Classic. There was always --always-- someone else around in Eastern Plaguelands.

Okay, so it truly is a brave new world.

I went ahead and finished my circuit, forwarded along the herbs to a bank alt, and put them up on the AH again just to see what'd happen. Wonder of wonders, they sold.

Well, almost all did. Can you guess which one didn't sell?

Yep, the Black Lotus.

In a way, that makes sense: not only are the flasks you make out of Black Lotus not worth as much in a TBC world, but the hassle of going into Scholomance or Blackwing Lair to make the flasks isn't worth it either. 

So, I kept the Black Lotus in my bank for posterity's sake and made a mental note that I could make about 60 gold in 1/2 hour's worth of 'work' just cruising through an empty hellscape for a while.

You know, I bet that if I take Azshandra across the Dark Portal and get her trained in Master Herbalism, she could come back to the Plaguelands and likely get about 2/3 of the way to max skillset in Herbalism before all of the herbs stopped giving her skill ups. After all, Plaguebloom alone only just became pickable before she hit max skill level in Classic...

 

*I crept into Zul'Gurub with my questing buddy to do some "farming" there. She brought her L70 Druid, so she was able to zip around mobs that Az couldn't.

Ch-ch-ch-changes

 Today feels.... Weird.

And no, I don't mean April Fool's Day sort of weird.

This is the first time in over 20 years that I no longer work at my old job.

Oh, I work for the same employer overall, but from 2001 to yesterday I worked in pretty much the same job for the same company. Admittedly most of that time was spent as a contractor, but still it feels weird to not have that anchor to my life.

At the same time, I'm completing my 2nd full week at my new job location, so at least I've got some continuity.

I'm not used to having my work day start later than 7:30 AM. Or that some of the meetings I'm in last an hour when in the old job they'd last half that. Or that I no longer have access to servers, so I can't just hop on to find things out myself. 

***

Which brings me to recurring urge to discover what I'd find if I were to hop on one of my old toons. Just because, I suppose.

I can't go back in time to see what I did at jobs in the 1990s, but I can see what I was doing in Retail when I unsubbed back in 2014.

I had a brief discussion with Shintar today about somehow playing together, and she'd mentioned that she'd created a free account on the Americas servers, so I thought "Maybe I should do that for the EU servers." That morphed into "Maybe I should reconnect with my old toons and see about what I can do with them." And so I hopped onto several toons.

Well, that was the idea, anyway, but the second or third toon I logged into was the original Balthan, and I discovered that the old bloggers' guild that Rades had created --Puggers Anonymous-- was still active with Balthan as GM.

 

Yep, Ironforge. Wait....

Then I saw it.

Yes. Those were Rades' toons.

Back in the days when Vidyala's guild, Business Time, was a top guild on Strict 10s progression*, Rades had created Puggers Anonymous on Moonrunner-US just so several of us bloggers could hang out together. Alas that almost all of those bloggers are gone from the game now, and the only toons left in the guild are Rades' and my own. 

And Rades will never login again. 

After staring at the screen for a few minutes, my curiosity evaporated and I quickly logged off.

I'm the GM of a dead guild started by a dead friend for friends that no longer play a game that is no longer recognizable to me.

It's hard to describe my feelings better than that statement, although "profoundly sad" does come to mind.

***

But.

There is a balancing out of things in MMOs.

Last Friday, one of the regulars that would attend our alt runs in Classic and is now part of the Monday raid joined the guild. I asked her what happened, and after Karazhan finished she pulled me into a private conversation and we talked. I can't divulge what was said, but let's just say she was given a raw deal.

But, she told me, she's much happier to be in a place with friends.

I definitely agreed with that one.

Then she said that people come to the Friday Karazhan raid because they love me and the way I run things.

"Uh...."

"You don't feel it? You're really well loved within the guild."

And here I was mostly feeling sorry for myself.

So... Maybe that's a hint that I should shut up a bit about some things.

*For those interested, what was meant by "Strict 10s" was that you raided only 10 person raids and equipped gear only from 10 person raids. Nothing from 25 person raids was allowed, and a raider from a Strict 10s raid team couldn't even venture into a 25 person raid at all. This meant that Business Time was really good at progression within the strict confines of 10 person raids. I still remember the time when, back in Mists, my Rogue --the original Azshandra-- was progressing through Pandaria and needed an assist on a pair of mini-bosses. Vid happened to be on, so we grouped up and she wiped the floor with those bosses. Az, in her green questing leather gear at L88 or so, had only half of the health of Vid's Mage, Millya, who was tricked out in full raid gear (I think 5.2 patch's raids at the time). If you ever wondered whether raid drops from Strict 10s was good enough to be a top progression guild, that should answer your question.

It Belongs in a Museum!

Saturday's Zul'Aman run came and went.

We survived. Barely.

It was not a pleasant experience, that's for certain.

***

Okay, I should clarify things a bit. 

We had enough people sign up that we were able to field two Zul'Aman teams, and how the teams broke down the three remaining Monday raid lead team people were on Team 1, and I found myself riding solo as Raid Lead on Team 2.

I saw that and cursed; I knew I was going to have to put in some extra time studying the entire ZA raid if I was going to be going live without backup.

So, most of my free time on Friday and Saturday was spent reviewing videos and walkthroughs, making notes, and then comparing those notes with the "official" ZA raid guide assembled by the "other" progression raid lead team, as they'd gone into the PTR and run it a couple of times beforehand.*

Saturday evening arrived, we assembled, and then we were off.

"Greetings, Doctor Jones...."

 

***

For those who haven't a clue about Zul'Aman --such as me-- it is what is known as a "catch up" raid. Supposedly, Zul'Aman allows a player to gear a toon quickly so they can then jump into the current "main" raids without having to spend all sorts of time running the four previous raids. The raid operates on a completely different lockout than the "main" raids, 3 days per lockout rather than 7 days, so it allows a player to run Zul'Aman multiple times per week.

Sounds great in theory, right?

Well, in practice Zul'Aman is harder than it looks.

Part of that is the main reason why progression raiders want to run Z'A: the warbear mount timed event.

It's less a Warbear and more of a Tank.
Put a gun turret on top and you'd have your
own personal Sherman tank.
(From Wowhead.)

 

Akin to the timed events in Stratholme and Shattered Halls, a captured person is going to be executed by the Big Bad if you don't engage a specific boss before the timer runs out. Unlike the other two events, the Zul'Aman version actually has a bit of flexibility built in, because of the following conditions:

• You have to defeat the first four of six bosses, not the last one, to finish the event.
• Two of the four bosses you defeat in the event will actually add time to your timer.

However, completing a "Bear Run" as it's known means avoiding trash where you can, moving and deafeating trash and bosses quickly, and one more thing:

DON'T GET LOST

And yes, in case you're wondering. We got lost. Or rather, the main tank and I BOTH got lost.

It's not very difficult to get lost in Zul'Aman, especially if you're running it for the first time, but that was not a warm fuzzy feeling when running around and the main tank is going "I thought it was this way."

"Yeah," I replied, "I thought it was too."

"It's over here," the Hunter spoke up. "I thought we were running the wrong way, but...."

"Dude," I said, "if you want to say something don't hesitate to say it. I'm not gonna be offended or anything."

In spite of all that, we actually got really close to making it on time to the last boss. Alas that we accidentally pulled the last two groups at once and wiped, causing us to miss the timer by 1-2 minutes.

Oh, and just so you know, part of the Bear Run strategy is to leave some of the chests behind for you to pick up afterward, and, well.....

I GOT LOST RUNNING BACK TO GET THOSE TOO

***

But I'm not here to discuss my map reading foibles, but rather the misadventures after the Bear Run portion of Zul'Aman.

You'd think that with the Bear Run finished --one way or another-- the next two bosses wouldn't be that hard.

Well....

Let me introduce you to Hex Lord Malacrass.

The Hex Lord has four mini-bosses with him, supposedly people he's hexxed into being his slaves, and he has a very annoying mechanic: the longer you fight him, the harder it is to do damage against him and the harder he hits you.

Yes, you read that right. The longer the fight goes on, he puts a stacking buff/debuff out that mitigates damage against him and amplifies damage against you. 

So you have to kill him off as quickly as you can, and those four mini bosses stand in the way.

Oh, and to make things even more fun, he'll steal the abilities of a class that's attacking him (it's a random selection) and use those abilities against the raid. So he could steal a healer's abilities and constantly heal himself, which is bad enough, but if he steals a Paladin's DPS abilities he gets to use such abilities as Consecrate against all the melee.

And guess who kept dying to Consecrate because he couldn't see it being laid down because the main tank --a Protection Paladin-- was also using Consecrate?

I just realized that my gear hasn't
changed since before the New Year,
over three full months ago. /sigh

Yeah, this woman.

The first couple of wipes things would start out well and then the main tank would bite it, and that was pretty much that.

So after the second wipe the off tank (also a Prot Pally) decided to step back and heal, since they weren't really adding DPS value to the fight.

That got us farther, but after a certain point I would die and without the interrupts I'd provide as an Enhancement Shaman the raid would eventually wipe by slow attrition.

After that happening about 3 more times, the main tank asked me what I was dying to. 

"I'm dying to.... Consecrate??"

"Aha! It thought it might be that."

I should have known better. I mean, 30% of the raid were Paladins, so it was highly likely that the Hex Lord was going to steal a Pally's abilities. "Okay, I'm going to stay back and just pretend I'm elemental. That should keep me alive."

We made that switch just as one of the raid team spoke up and said that they were going to have to leave soon. "I wasn't expecting this to take more than 2 hours," he admitted. 

"Neither did I," I added. "We'll have about 1-2 more pulls with you around, and we'll see if we can pull this off."

The first attempt with only the main tank in melee ended in a wipe, but we got much farther than we had before, so I felt confident on the very next pull.

It was going to be the last pull with our off tank around, so we had to make it count.

And, wonder of wonders, it did. In gymnastics slang, we stuck the landing and got the Hex Lord down.

"That had to be the hardest boss here," the main tank said after the cheering had died down.

"I agree," I replied. "That was nuts."

***

After the Hex Lord, Zul'Jin was a walk in the park.

Well, relatively speaking.

We did wipe once or twice, and our Mage announced that he had another raid in about 10 minutes so he was going to have to leave, so we managed to get Zul'Jin down with 9 raiders at the very last possible moment before the Time and Date Boss got us.

Team 2 finished Zul'Aman by the skin of our teeth.

***

Throughout the whole raid, I was receiving updates from my questing buddy. She was originally supposed to be on my raid team, but because of a last minute swap she got pulled into Team 1. Right about the point where we were about to engage the last boss in the Bear Run, Halazzi, she began whispering me about how they kept dying to trash.

It was really discouraging, she admitted, that they weren't going to finish the Bear Run.

And then, while we were busy keeping everybody's bank accounts low by wiping on the Hex Lord, she was telling me about a whole lot of other wipes they were having. In the end, Team 1 ran out of time before people had to leave for other commitments, and they only got down 4 of the 6 bosses.

That kind of weighed on me, because if you'd have asked me which raid would have had an easier time of it, it was Team 1. It certainly wasn't due to my brilliance, but afterward when people congregated into the same Discord channel we felt that the presence of a Priest on Team 2 helped us considerably, given that Team 1 didn't have a Priest at all. 

But that didn't help the Monday's overall raid lead, who was crushed by her team's inability to finish the raid.

I spent some time in a side channel consoling her, because it's one of those things that just happens. Some of it is being new to the raid, some of it is composition, and some of it is thinking that we can steamroll through content that turned out to be harder than we thought.

And in my heart, I knew that gear definitely played a part in this.

The Monday raid had been falling farther and farther behind in gear compared to the 2x/week raid, and this was the most obvious manifestation of the gear discrepancy.

I mentioned that I didn't expect this raid to be this hard, and our main tank pointed out that "In the videos it's easy to steamroll it when you're in Black Temple BiS gear."

As for this raid being a "catch up raid", I have to wonder if a raid team composed of people who are fresh L70 toons could complete Zul'Aman, never mind the Bear Run, without fine tuning the raid's composition and having plenty of experience. If you've got your critical pieces to the raid in at least some Serpentshrine Cavern/Tempest Keep pieces, yes you can do this. After all, Team 2 did. Even then, you probably have to give up the Bear Run until you get plenty of experience running ZA. 

***

I want to keep running Zul'Aman, because I think that the raid composition can be fine tuned to a significant degree, and once we get used to the raid itself we'll be that much better of a team for it. Gear can hide a lot of significant problems, and it's better that we as a team without all that gear learn how the raid runs and what strategies work so that as raiders come and go we will be better off to handle them.

As long as we don't end up like this...

 

 

*This is the 2x/week team. They'd also run ZA on Thursday with two teams of their own, so they all had a lot more experience in ZA than I had. And if you're wondering why I didn't get into the PTR myself to check out the raid beforehand, there are two reasons: I didn't have the time, and even if I did have the time I'm not a fan of PTR environments in general. I'd rather not have the story and/or raid spoiled just so I could speed run something. That second piece is kind of at odds with my raid lead position, but I've also found it easier to take notes while examining videos rather than trying to stop and take notes while actually running it myself.

B.F. Skinner Would be Proud

Last Monday night I was woken up by a ping on my phone.

I'd gone to sleep --again-- after another Monday evening spent with an early-ish bedtime followed by waking up at around 11:15 PM and then a second time around 1:00 AM, from which I couldn't get back to anything resembling slumber until 3 AM once more.

This has been kind of a constant theme lately, where I wake up involuntarily and can't get back to sleep while the Monday raid is going on. It kind of puts a lie to my excuse of needing to get more rest because of the new job, but it appears to be something I simply can't control. 

"You miss us," my questing buddy whispered to me while I was --naturally-- on WoW, waiting to get tired enough to go back to sleep. 

I wasn't doing much --just some reading for work as well as questing and grinding so I could level my weapon skills and get enough gold for a flying mount for Linna*-- but this happening for much of the past month has forced my hand.

"Okay," I replied, "I'll admit it. I miss y'all."

"Hehe... win!!"

"A true win would be to come back."

"Do you want to? We're 1 short tonight."

"But I'm the kid from A Christmas Story with his face against the glass window. Can't. No Kael kill."

"I know. :-("

She then asked, "Is it the Kael kill keeping you from BT?"

"Without a Kael kill, no Hyjal. Without Hyjal, no BT."

"Ah, right."**

So, with that on my mind, I finally was able to get to sleep right after the raid concluded. If I were in the raid, however, my night wouldn't be over until after 4 AM EST, when the raid lead team would have finished their analysis of how things went. So while I do miss the raid, I don't miss the afterparty that much.

***

When my phone went off, I was certain it was work.

And I was totally ready to be able to tell people at my old position to basically "fuck off", because I had a little over a week left in my old job and --with the blessing of my administrative manager-- I could tell them to contact my successor instead.

Politely.***

Instead, I discovered it was from Shintar, who contacted me directly about a comment I made on Kaylriene's post about whether the WoW Community itself is doing okay. (Spoiler alert, it's not.) 

You see, Shintar had commented about one regular commenter on her blog(s) who only would come on to comment about how the game sucks and that it used to be good but it isn't now. Not mean spirited, mind you, and polite about it, but it wears on a body to see that all the time.

And yes, I thought that person was me.

Because of that comment (and the post itself), I began to do some soul searching about why I feel the way I do about WoW --both Retail and Classic-- as well as other MMOs. Shintar's comment via Discord led to a relatively short conversation that I honestly hardly remember at all were it not for the entire collection of text in Discord itself.

One of the things that stood out to me the most about the conversation, reading it in the morning while drinking coffee, was that I said that Kaylriene is right; I really wanted WoW to get better, but I didn't know how to do so. I also mentioned that every time WoW is at a juncture, it makes a turn to embrace the hardcore raiding crowd. And that after a certain point, [the game] can't find [its] way back to anything else.

Shintar disputed that, saying that she does not get the same vibe out of Retail playing now as a non-raider.

That being said, my observation was that everything was oriented toward a raid at the end, and WoW's design was to get you into a raid. Unlike, say, Wrath, where you'd get new instances as well as new raids with each major patch, as well as new non-raid content (such as the Quel'Delar questline).****

But Shintar pointed out two things that I thought, upon reading them again, were quite important: that Retail has tourist mode raids so that more people can see the content, which Wrath definitely didn't have, and that we're seeing the same player behavior in TBC Classic as we saw in Retail, so in her opinion raiding hasn't changed much over the years other than the fact that Retail allows people to see the raid with minimal effort nowadays.

But that, and my reaction to that, makes me think of conditioning.

***

It may sound like a simple question, but it is at the heart of why MMOs --and to a lesser extent a LOT of other video games-- operate: do we play the way we play because we have been conditioned to play that way? The positive reinforcement of how MMOs are designed, with the "do this get a reward" does hand things out bite sized chunks, but it also conditions us to expect those things. And not just the rewards, but how a game is supposed to be. 

The joke about all of the Zelda games is that Link goes around smashing pottery, and there isn't a piece of pottery throughout the kingdom that is safe from him. But when you think about it, have we as players come to expect to have to smash pottery in a Zelda game? That smashing pottery is the way to find rupees and items? And that if Link doesn't go smashing pottery, is it really a Zelda game? That if the next installment of The Legend of Zelda didn't allow Link to smash pottery willy-nilly, would the fans of the game raise havoc?

MMOs have their own conditioning based on how "things have always been done" in game worlds. Things such as:

• Quests follow a specific cadence, in packs of 3-4 quests of increasing difficulty, until you the final quest is a mini-boss.
  
• Speeding through content to get to Endgame.
• The game begins at Endgame.
• MMOs must have raiding as the primary focus of Endgame.
  
• How other things to do in an MMO, such as crafting, side quests, and reputation grinding, affects raiding.
• To be a good player, you must follow the metagame.
  

Or, for more game specific conditioning:*****

• WoW must always have a Horde vs. Alliance conflict.
• Once you reach Endgame, you're expected to run dailies and grind to gain access to raids.
• Every major content patch in WoW must have new gear to grind/raid/whatever for.
• The only real raiding in WoW is Heroic or harder.
• Each new expansion in WoW must have new systems, so that you start the grinding/learning rotations/etc. all over.

Perhaps this is why things remain the way they are in MMOs, and WoW in particular, because we as players are conditioned to expect things and do things in a specific way, and we see those patterns even when they weren't fully fleshed out back in the day. Which would explain a bit as to why people are playing TBC Classic as if they were playing Retail: we were conditioned to do this over the decades of MMO playing.

***

Subverting the conditioning, however, is hard.

Some games, such as Elden Ring, can pull it off despite deviating from the expected open world formula we've come to expect. The articles that swept gamer space a week or two ago, about how Horizon: Forbidden West developers threw shade at Elden Ring for quest development, shows how ingrained the conditioning is.

And no matter how many new things there are to do in WoW, ostensibly designed to let people do things other than simply raid, people feel obligated to do all the things because they're conditioned to believe that's how it's done. There is no easy way out of that mentality.

It would be one thing if video games themselves were performing the conditioning process, but with the advent of social media, the behavioral reinforcement comes from a myriad of places. If you put "things to do before the next patch drops" into Google, you get a ton of results from all sorts of places that look something like this:

• "Things to do and NOT to do before Patch 9.2 Drops"
• "What things can I do before pre-patch drops?"
• "4 Goldmaking Things to do before 9.1!"
• "7 Things You Need to Finish Before FF XIV Endwalker"
• "First Things to do at LVL 60 in Classic WoW: Get Raid Ready!"

Yes, these were all real article names, taken across YouTube videos, Reddit posts, blog posts, and gamer website articles.

This isn't limited to MMOs mind you, because just about any video game has this sort of output, whether it's tutorials on how to play, how to get good, how to win, or just how to do things the way you're expected to.

I remember back in the day when I frequented Boardgame Geek, there was a certain subset of Eurogame player who would rip a new person playing Puerto Rico for "not doing it right" if you didn't play the game the "right way". Some of that is based on the metagame for Puerto Rico, but other parts of it was due to the conditioning behind how things were supposed to flow in a game of Puerto Rico.******

***

As for what to do about this I have no good answer.

I can sit here, typing away, missing the raid, but realizing that I don't miss a lot of the work that I would have to do to actually raid in progression.

Lot of people are perfectly happy to play the way they have been playing, and get the game they have been expecting, and I can respect that. 

But for those who see problems with their favorite game, whether it be an MMO (like WoW), an RPG (like Assassin's Creed), or a boardgame (such as Puerto Rico), it's a fair question to ask whether the conditioning has locked us into an unsatisfying realization:

Is the problem not with the game, but is it us?

*I have a goal of 1200 gold before I spring for basic flying for her. I don't want her to be so cash poor afterward that she can't buy food/water (or other things) on her own, and 1200 has a nice round number to it. Of course, having said that, I'll probably end up getting close and telling myself I could wait until she has 1500 gold. Or make up some other excuse to delay the inevitable, I suppose.

**I corrected some of the grammar during the exchange. I suppose I can't help myself there either. And yes, I'm completely aware that --supposedly-- the attunements were removed for Hyjal and BT, although it wasn't mentioned in the official post.

***I can be polite whenever I need to, but I really really wanted to let certain people know what I really felt about them going around behind everyone's back and backstabbing me.

****I found it interesting that TBC did NOT add any new instances or non-raid content that didn't end in a daily grindfest until the last patch, with the addition of the Magister's Terrace instance. I'd taken my cues from Wrath, having been my first exposure to WoW, so it seemed natural to me that the Serpentshrine Cavern instances would drop when the SSC raid would, etc.

*****Some of these are more generic as well, such as the Sith Empire vs. Republic in SWTOR. Well, except for Knights of the Fallen Empire and it's immediate successor expansion, that is.

******And yes, a good portion of it was people just being assholes.

Looking Ahead, Part Deux

After my last post, I figured that a follow up deserved one too. After all, I spend enough time complaining --under the guise of 'commenting'-- that I figured I ought to post when things actually go well for a change.

When we last saw our heroes, I had a rude awakening when I discovered Friday morning that the name of my raid had been changed to a Zul'Aman raid, and a raid for the OTHER progression raid team.

Oh yes, who needs coffee when you discover that you're not only squeezed out of the one raid that you are able to run, but you're squeezed out of a raid so that the OTHER team --the one that can make our progression raid team feel like the "backups" or "reserves" because they run twice a week, get more than twice as much gear, and have most of the sweatiest players-- booted you out of your raid without any notification whatsoever?

Yeah, I was not pleased.

***

I blew off some steam by cursing up a blue streak, sighed, and more politely followed up in the raid leadership channel that I was planning on running Karazhan until there was no more interest in doing so. After all, while Zul'Aman may have only a 3 day lockout, Karazhan in Phase 4 will have upwards of 22 badges available. This is the largest number of badges available in a single raid/instance in TBC Classic, so for those that like badges this will keep interest for quite a while.

What I didn't say is that the people who are my 'regulars' show up because they like the laid back atmosphere and the overall lack of pressure to speed run the damn place. I call them my regulars, because they seem to always have a new alt to run through and gear up in Kara.* 

Given the name change, I knew which of the co-GMs did the work, so I waited to see what was going to happen.

***

Well, I didn't have to wait long. Before 9 AM ST the other co-GM had changed the raid name back.

And a few hours later I received an apology in the chat from the other co-GM, as she wasn't aware that I was still running Karazhan.

I accepted the apology at face value, but given my regular drumbeats of getting the Friday raid filled on Wednesday and Thursday on the guild's Discord LFG channel, I don't know how you could not know.**

***

And so I figured that was that. I got my raid back, along with an apology, and I could still have my Friday nights.

Well...

That evening, while I was relaxing prior to the raid, I received a ping from the Monday Raid Lead. Would I be interested in running a Zul'Aman raid with her on a Saturday afternoon, Server Time?

This means that the raid would start at 6 PM EST and run until 8 PM EST (roughly) so as not to interfere with another friend's proposed SSC raid at 11 EST.

I didn't hesitate. 

"Sure!"

At about this point, I was starting to wonder whether I should buy a lottery ticket or something, because I wasn't expecting to have all of this drop in my lap on Friday.

And to top it off, there was apparently a guild leadership discussion, and the outcome of that was to allow the raid leads a bit more internal power within the guild itself. Not that it's anything I'd use and definitely not anything I asked for, but it does exist now.

So... Yay?

***

And yes, I did go out and buy a lottery ticket today, because I figured why not? It was nice to have lady luck smile on me for a change, and on the extremely unlikely chance I actually win something I can use those winnings to help some other people out. Pay it forward and all that.

*I honestly don't know how they do it, but then again if you had a lot of alts sitting at L60 when TBC Classic dropped, that'd make it easier to level, I suppose.

**And yes, I can fill in the blanks. I'm just going to be better than that.